2021 Magazine: Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Letter from the Chair

Dear colleagues,

It has been an eventful year in Duke Engineering—to begin, there was the appointment of our new Vinik dean, Jerome Lynch, who will take the helm of the school in early 2022. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has had more than its share of excitement as well—our department now boasts 10 major research centers, with the establishment of multiple new endeavors this year:

• The NSF AI Institute for Edge Computing Leveraging Next Generation Networks;
• The Air Force Research Laboratory/Air Force Office of Scientific Research University Center of Excellence focusing on agile waveform design for communication networks in contested environments;
• A Department of Defense MURI center supporting metasurface-enabled imaging systems; and
• The NSF-funded Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AIICE). 

You can read more in this year’s digital magazine, alongside stories highlighting the entrepreneurial culture of Duke ECE and the myriad resources available to students and faculty interested in translating their research into products and services available to the public. In fact, I had the recent thrill of being present on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when IonQ, a Duke ECE spinoff and the world’s first pure-play quantum computing company, went public. Two of our faculty members, Chris Monroe and Jungsang Kim, joined IonQ president Peter Chapman as he rang the bell and began trading for the day. 

Whether our startups grow to fill a specialized niche or eventually expand into multi-billion-dollar companies poised to take over entire market segments, we are proud that each spun out from the work of our brilliant Duke ECE community.

Enjoy!

Krishnendu Chakrabarty
John Cocke Distinguished Professor and Chair